Transplant Uterus into a Male
Transgender Guide | Site Map | Chat | Personals | Message Board | Articles | Support | Shopping | Links
Transgender Guide | Site Map | Chat | Personals | Message Board | Articles | Support | Shopping | Links
Q&A
Q. If there is a surgery from a man to a women why cant the doctors implant a woman's uterus? I mean it would give the hormones and allow the person to bear children.
Response by Krystle Glass
A. Well, for all I know there isn't any reason why doctors can't transplant a women's uterus into a transgendered person. In fact I have heard rumors of experiments to enable men to bear children (I don't know the details involved). But for the medical community to take on investigation into a procedure, there has to be a real demand for it. And while the surgery for changes one's sex is pretty straightforward, it is nothing like that for transplantation. I can think of several reasons why it is not a really viable course of consideration.
For one thing in nearly all transplant surgery, there is the goal of replacing an existing defective part with a healthy functioning one. This means there already exists all the support tissues, blood supply etc. There is no existing corresponding structure to a women's uterus in a physically male body. Also in order for there to be a transplant you need to have a donor. Except for organ donation of a deceased person, you will not be ever likely to find women willing to donate their uterus. It isn't like donating a kidney, of which we have two. And I don't see there being enough demand for such a procedure to move the medical community to set up organ donor banks, tissue typing, waiting lists etc, for this type of procedure.
And I have to correct a mis-assumption here. It is not the uterus which produces female hormones. Those are produced in several glands and most importantly in the ovaries. It is also the ovaries which produce the egg. The uterus is used for the growth and development of the fertilized egg and fetus. And as with the uterus, ovary transplantation has the same structural problems of not having a corresponding organ site, support structure and functionality. And as many genetic women have learned, having a uterus and ovaries does not insure a proper hormonal mix, nor the ability to bear children.